The Rules of DPS Club

BejaProphet · September 2021

Welcome to tank life. Allow me to give you a little kernel to help keep your blood pressure low.

When it’s safe, the kids are going to play.

I have to remind myself of this often. What I mean is that in easier content they are going to do stupid, unsafe stuff just for the sake of fun and exploring their own abilities. It’s just going to happen. Usually they mean no insult to you by doing so. When running with people who know me and think very highly of my tanking (they say it often) they STILL do this. They rush out ahead and try to fight something nuts just to make the dungeon feel crazy and exciting. They absolutely respect my tanking, but we aren’t in sweaty DLC stuff so they….play, they goof off.

When it’s safe, the kiddos are going to play. When you hit vet DLC, expect them to dial it in and get serious. Otherwise realize you, the big tanky protector, can just shake your head at the dumb kids being kids.

Bjond · September 2021

Gaebriel0410 wrote: »

saying at least hi at the start of a dungeon, should get in fashion

I try keep that habit up. "Hi" at the start really helps AND it swaps chat to party to avoid those weird misstells to the guild.

The OP was inspired by a party where the DPS was already charging before I had even finished zoning in. I was in the process of typing "Hi" when he was fighting. He was dead on the second fight and telling us we all sucked while I was waiting for fighting to stop so I could swap to the right gear-set for that dungeon.

At that point, I just left the group. In retrospect, I should have put up a kick vote for him first as a courtesy to the other players that were not charging in.

kargen27 wrote: »

Stay between tank and healer.

Back on the "rules for DPS" topic, YES! This doesn't bother me when I'm on my tank, but when I'm on my healer, DPS that try to hide behind me or who won't step 2" forward onto the giant AE healing puddle drive me crazy. If they're new, I do understand why, though. When I was brand new, literally anyything that put an effect on the ground was threatening and to be avoided.

Best advice I got in one random pug was to change the color of the default danger-AE marker. Pink & Teal are the best, IMHO, because nothing else in game really matches those. I use a pink color to retain a bit of the "red is bad" feel. The default red blends into just about every fire effect in game and is utterly invisible.

newtinmpls · September 2021

I quoted this because it was so lovely and true:

Bjond wrote: »

If you want to join DPS Club in veteran content, there are a few simple rules:
Wait for the tank

Wait for the tank

If someone taps out, raise them

Mechs before DPS

Then I saw this:

Bjond wrote: »

This is a bit of a segue from a couple funny general rules for DPS to follow that ensure they're behaving as minimally helpful team players. And, besides, "we don't tank about DPS club" (cuz if you're tanking, you're charging .. ).

At the beginning of the run I will usually greet in chat, to
1-ask if anyone is doing the quest
2-Let people know if I'm interested in any of the set bits (still looking for Sanctuary stamina weapons for my sticker book, and always like Lamia divines 'cause I am slowly upgrading on my wardens)

Now I think I'll have to add some comments (maybe I can cut and paste and have them ready)

1-Hi, I'm the healer. I will be focusing on the tank. Stay close if you need heals.
2-Hi, I'm the tank. I will be doing pulls and lockdowns; so please do not rush into the corner to "get that one guy".
3-Hi, I'm DPSing today; I will be waiting till the tank acts first. I will rez if someone goes down.

Magdalina · September 2021

Tbh, as someone who does both tanking and dpsing, and does a LOT of that in pugs, I don't really see the point of obsessing with 'never ever ever ever pull before tank' for ALL the content. There're fights where it really, really matters and careful choice of skills can make or break it. If you pull a boss in a vet dlc before tank, yeap, you probably deserve to get one-shot by it. But in a normal, or even on most trash packs in vet...it's a neat little concept that's wasted there. Let's start with the fact that there's an abundance of slow tanks that lag behind for god knows what reason, never saying anything and arriving at the scene of the fight when everything's already dead, and continue with the fact that most things in normals dying in 3 hits anyway. There's not much point in waiting for tank to 'make things neater and faster' (which, might I add, most pug tanks don't even do. While most tanks I run into in pugs do seem to have high health and s&b, extraordinary low % of them actually try to stack mobs) when you can literally kill all the things before tank even gets there (you obviously wait for everyone on bosses because loot, now that is common etiquette indeed).

Now when people pull on bosses in dungeons, especially vet...well that's when it often gets funny lol. And mildly annoying, yes. But there's worlds of difference between 'don't pull bosses before tank' and 'never ever ever pull ANYTHING before tank'. Seriously, no, there's no overwhelming reason to run normal FG1 at the seed of RP walking just because some tanks seem to prefer it like that.

Amottica · September 2021

CaffeinatedMayhem wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

When tanking I have offered to leave a group when a player rushes ahead. The others end up vote kicking them. If I am healing I will slow down enough so they get in trouble.

As for gear, that is life and the maw set will happen. If the player is doing decent then I think complaining about their choice of gear is the last thing to be concerned with. While the maw set can be annoying but we just have to adjust to get them out of the way.

Complaining about Maw is valid in BC2. It's hard enough on the tank holding 6-8 Daedroth because group DPS is low, but with 3 DPS wearing Maw (remember, the healer is fake) now you have to determine WHICH daedroth to taunt, and how do you get the 3 ENEMY daedroth away from the Maw's? Because ofc the DPS aren't directing their pets...

Just don't wear Maw of the Infernal in BC2 on HM. Just don't.

There is no reason to be holding 6-8 daedroth in BC2. Even in a recent pug group with less than stellar DPS I just told them to kill all the adds. They complied until the end which allowed enough time for 4 adds to spawn with the e4th spawning just before the boss is killed.

With a pre-made group it is easier since you can do this on comms.

Even then, the daedroth pricing from the set is not an issue since the tank should not be anywhere near the boss once they start holding the adds because it would be bad to have the adds in the way of the DPS attacking the boss. The tank can range taunt the boss if they choose to.

It would be interesting to hear how this set is such a problem in the last fight of BC2 when the tank is holding the daedroth outside of the group not planning well for their low DPS as that is not a issue with the set.

Thannazzar · September 2021

Bjond wrote: »

If you want to join DPS Club in veteran content, there are a few simple rules:
Wait for the tank

Wait for the tank

If someone taps out, raise them

Mechs before DPS

There are probably more, but since I've started running my tank, the absolute top peeve has got to be charging DPS. You're not speeding things up. You're not showing off. It's not "OK because I can handle it" (there are others in the group). You're behaving like a complete waste of a group slot. If the tank is paused before a fight, they're picking out which things to taunt out of the herd. If you charge, there's not going to be ANY taunt, because you just moved everything off target.

Oh, and your pet "Jeff" is not cool, especially in BC2. Keep infernal maw for solo. I won't put up a kick or drop group for using maw the way I will for charging, but you are annoying the tank for no good reason.

Additional rule; parse on a dummy is irrelavent, its the damage you can do on an actual raid/vet dlc boss while surviving mechanics that counts.

BomblePants · September 2021

The first rule of DPS Club… is that we don’t talk about DPS Club…

Amottica · September 2021

BomblePants wrote: »

The first rule of DPS Club… is that we don’t talk about DPS Club…

LOL. I do have to agree but my guess is OP is the tank.

Amottica · September 2021

Thannazzar wrote: »

Bjond wrote: »

If you want to join DPS Club in veteran content, there are a few simple rules:
Wait for the tank

Wait for the tank

If someone taps out, raise them

Mechs before DPS

There are probably more, but since I've started running my tank, the absolute top peeve has got to be charging DPS. You're not speeding things up. You're not showing off. It's not "OK because I can handle it" (there are others in the group). You're behaving like a complete waste of a group slot. If the tank is paused before a fight, they're picking out which things to taunt out of the herd. If you charge, there's not going to be ANY taunt, because you just moved everything off target.

Oh, and your pet "Jeff" is not cool, especially in BC2. Keep infernal maw for solo. I won't put up a kick or drop group for using maw the way I will for charging, but you are annoying the tank for no good reason.

Additional rule; parse on a dummy is irrelavent, its the damage you can do on an actual raid/vet dlc boss while surviving mechanics that counts.

What the parse is on a dummy is not important, but parsing on a dummy to get the point your rotation is set in memory, not having to think about it, is important for anyone that wants to do good DPS.

newtinmpls · September 2021

Magdalina wrote: »

there's no overwhelming reason to run normal FG1 at the seed of RP walking just because some tanks seem to prefer it like that.

One point: sprinting burns resources....so many of the tanks will run, but not sprint. If that's the case, it's good sportsmanship NOT to run ahead (see original post).

Bjond · September 2021

Amottica wrote: »

There is no reason to be holding 6-8 daedroth in BC2. Even in a recent pug group with less than stellar DPS I just told them to kill all the adds

For some reason when I end up tanking BC2, the DPS can't seem to kill one Jeff before the next spawns. "Come swat a few adds" quite literally doesn't work. [snip] HM is the only way to make any progress on the boss at all.

That's not the only issue with Jeff, too. It seems to be coded to literally spawn in the tanks face and thus block viewing any tell from whatever you're tanking, such as a heavy attack you need to block. It's even annoying when trying to pull stuff into the AE ball for efficient killing.

Magdalina wrote: »

in a normal, or even on most trash packs in vet...it's a neat little concept that's wasted there

The rules are for veteran content. No one much cares what happens in a normal dungeon (which is part of the problem, because it teaches newbies very bad habits).

Rules are for those who don't know any better. And, that's another problem, because IMHO it's those who should know better that are most guilty of charging ahead and messing things up[snip].

newtinmpls wrote: »

1-Hi, I'm the healer. I will be focusing on the tank. Stay close if you need heals

Most tanks don't need any heals at all or very little. I used to focus tank, too, on my healer -- it's ingrained and reflexive behavior from previous MMO. Now I focus melee DPS and just try to make sure the tank has a regen, which is usually more than enough to help them conserve resources by skipping on self-heals.

Healers have to adapt more to the group than any other role, though. I could go 4 or 5 runs without healing the tank and then get a tank that requires excessive babysitting. And, yeah, it took me a while to shift to mostly healing DPS. It wasn't until I made a tank myself that I started (mostly) ignoring the tank on heals.

[snip]
[edited for baiting]

Amottica · September 2021

[Quoted post has been removed.]

You are the tank. After one wipe tell the group to kill the adds. That is what I do and it works well. They tend to start ignoring the adds when the boss's health gets low so we end up doing HM but at most I have had adds up and can keep myself alive with that. There should not be more than one daedroth proc up at a time until the end of the fight. At worse one daedroth about to die as the next one is spawning

If the DPS is to low for this then that daedroth spawn is the least of the tank's concerns and those DPS should stick to normal mode because their DPS is not high enough to clear regular vet. No offense to them as this is mathematically based.

And with this boss the tank's position is not that important as he does not have a cleave. If the daedroth proc spawns the tank can take a step or two in any direction and be free of it.

Bjond · September 2021

Amottica wrote: »

If the DPS is to low for this then that daedroth spawn is the least of the tank's concerns and those DPS should stick to normal mode because their DPS is not high enough to clear regular vet.

Well, yes, they're not ready for vet if they can't kill the Jeffs. Kinda late in the dungeon to find that out, though. Heh, and if they can kill the Jeffs, they have enough DPS to do HM. It's a lol-worthy design failure to use a trigger like that for HM.

DPS tests should be at the front of a dungeon, not the back -- to avoid wasting everyone's time. I dislike even the thought of using Combat Metrics to kick dps early, too. And, that's not only because you can't directly parse individuals, but because it's outright rude not to give them a chance.

Sometimes, low DPS is just fine when they're good at the mechs. I had a WGT run the other day that I thought with 100% certainty was going to fail because total party DPS was ~25k. I "lol'd" to myself when someone hit HM, but it worked. So, the joke was on me there (thankfully).

Amottica · September 2021

Bjond wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

If the DPS is to low for this then that daedroth spawn is the least of the tank's concerns and those DPS should stick to normal mode because their DPS is not high enough to clear regular vet.

Well, yes, they're not ready for vet if they can't kill the Jeffs. Kinda late in the dungeon to find that out, though. Heh, and if they can kill the Jeffs, they have enough DPS to do HM. It's a lol-worthy design failure to use a trigger like that for HM..

It was one what was original six death challenges. Ofc, the game launched with only six vet dungeons. It also works well when players actually pay attention. I have been with groups who planned when to stop killing the daedroths because they knew what they could do (and I am not referring to the groups who never have to kill a daedroth).

But this discussion concerns pugs and what I mentioned previously is something I have found to be very successful. as long as the DPS can actually kill a deadroth and they can pay attention enough to move out of red.

spartaxoxo · September 2021

The first rule of dps club is you do not talk about dps club.

Call_of_Red_Mountain · September 2021

Find a good build and kick dummy until you'll see 25-30k dps. After that you can try old veteran dungeons. Polish your rotation. Kill solo world bosses. Finish vMA. Kick dummy again and go in your first dlc dungeon or vet Craglorn trial. Ask people in guilds if you have some questions about your skills, cp system or mechanics. Respect tanks and healers and don't pull adds in vet content. Be patient.